The start was innocent enough.
With 44 seconds left, Georgia’s Kenny Gaines knocked down a 3-pointer to cut into Auburn’s 9-point lead.
But with 31 seconds left, he hit another. He hit a third with 23 seconds remaining, cutting the Auburn lead, which once stood at 19, to 3.
Then Gaines’ teammate, J.J. Frazier, took the stage.
Frazier scored 7 points of his game-high 29 points in nine seconds to cut the Bulldogs’ deficit to 1 and bring the Auburn Arena crowd, which had been quiet for most of the night, to a fever pitch.
“They had two really good shooters,” said Auburn guard TJ Lang. “At some point in time, they were going to start making shots. It just happened to come in the last 45 seconds. … You just kind of weather the storm a little bit.”
After two Bryce Brown free throws, Frazier went to the line with 1.6 seconds left and missed both.
Cinmeon Bowers heaved the ball down the court, securing an 84-81 Auburn win that, earlier in the game, seemed certain.
Auburn jumped out to a 19-point lead, its largest since Dec. 2 against Coastal Carolina, in the first half behind 14 points from Lang, who scored a career-high 21.
Eight of Lang’s points came from the free-throw line, two days after Auburn coach Bruce Pearl challenged his guards to penetrate more.
“(Pearl) has really good constructive criticism,” Lang said. “He came to me and Bryce in practice and pretty much challenged us. Everybody knows we can really shoot the ball, so we had to kind of take the next step in our game and put the ball on the floor and make them pay for closing out on us very hard.”
Lang wasn’t the only player to secure a career high for the Tigers.
Jordon Granger scored a career-high 18 points and grabbed a personal-best 11 rebounds to secure his first career double-double.
“By far, this is one of the best games I’ve played, offensively and defensively,” Granger said. “I feel like it was a great team effort tonight. The effort was there, and the hunger to get a win was there.”
Granger played the game out of position, as he was filling in at the four for Tyler Harris, who missed the game with a concussion.
“Because we’ve been so banged up in the backcourt all year long, he’s had to play the three,” Pearl said. “He’s pretty good at the four. It’s the position he trained for all summer. So we turned a negative into a positive there.”
T.J. Dunans also shook off the rust in his second game back from a knee injury suffered against Harvard on Dec. 23.
The Atlanta native scored 12 points and had a game-high seven assists against the school that didn’t offer him a scholarship out of high school.
“I thought Dunans made a huge difference,” Pearl said. “We don’t win the game without him, period. The end.”
Even with career nights from several players, it took Auburn 10 free throws in the final 41 seconds to hold onto its first SEC home win since Jan. 19.
The Tigers also eclipsed their SEC win total from last season with three regular season games plus at least one SEC Tournament game remaining.
“I talked to the team about it,” Pearl said. “‘Let’s do something that last year’s team didn’t do. Let’s get our fifth regular season win.’ I know it’s not where we want to be, but it’s steps. It’s steps in the right direction.”
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